One of the benefits homeowners receive after installing solar panels on their roofs is the ability to sell the excess power that those panels generate back to the power company, thus lowering monthly electric bills.

So on a lovely 75 degree fall day, when the windows are open and the only electricity you’re using is to charge your iPhone, the power company credits your bill for the power your solar panel is generating and offsets some of the bills you paid in July, when it was 110 degrees and that solar panel couldn’t generate enough juice to run your air conditioner and the pool pump and the microwave and charge your iPhone all at the same time.

It’s a benefit that attracts a lot of homeowners to solar power. Even if it will take 20 years for the solar panels to pay for themselves through the sale of power, it’s one more reason, above simply doing your bit to combat global warming and helping out the earth, for a homeowner to consider installing solar panels.

But Rocky Mountain Power would like to grab a little of that cash back from its customers.

RMP has asked the Utah Public Service Commission to allow it to begin charging a $4.65 “facilities charge” to solar power customers who sell the excess power their panels generate back to the power company.

The company argues that the cost of building and maintaining the grid is a fixed cost regardless of how much power it moves and that solar panel owners avoid paying their fair share of those fixed costs through the sale of their excess power.

We can think of quite a few reasons why this request should be denied and would strongly urge the Public Service Commission to rule against this proposed charge.

To start with, we should be doing everything we can to encourage investment in renewable and clean energy. We need to ween ourselves from king coal and reduce our reliance of fossil fuels, and whether that’s through increased solar capacity or even through the building of a nuclear power plant in Idaho, we all recognize the need to reduce our carbon footprint.

Charging extra fees to homeowners doing their best to help out the planet and their wallets by installing solar panels should be discouraged at all costs.

In addition, RMP is already recouping some of their “facilities” cost through their policy of resetting power credits every year at the end of the annual billing cycle on March 31.

Any extra power credits a homeowner earns, if unused on March 31 of every year, simply vanish. For some solar panels owners that is just a few dollars; for others it can be hundreds of dollars worth of credits.

On top of that, RMP homeowners are payed just 3 cents per kWh for the power they generate, which is then sold by the power company to their neighbors at a rate of 8 to 14 cents per kWh. RMP is already more than doubling their investment in the power generated by solar panels.

And lastly, what we feel might be the most important reason this charge request should be denied is that the same argument RMP is making for charging solar customers a fee could be made against rural homeowners. If solar customers are charged a fee because the amount they pay doesn’t cover the cost of maintaining the power lines running to their homes, why shouldn’t power companies be allowed to charge other homeowners and businesses who’s power bills don’t cover the costs of the lines they utilize?

It costs far more to run electrical lines to a home in Beryl than it does to one in Washington Fields, and we could easily see this charge opening a Pandoras Box of fees for each and every customer a power company feels isn’t providing them with enough profit.

The Public Service Commission should recognize this request as an attempt to squeeze a few extra dollars from customers trying to help out the environment, their community and the world by investing in solar power, and stop it in its tracks.